


A new start

by Bacner



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU - Freeform, Animals, Apologies, Arguments, CyberTek, F/M, Gen, New Planet, OCs - Freeform, Pastoral, Redemption, space travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-06-08 12:18:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6854353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bacner/pseuds/Bacner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Across the multiverse, Bobbi and Lance arrive on a new planet where they are met by a couple of old faces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Across the multiverse…_

Lance Hunter was not the most attentive man in the universe, but neither he was the most inattentive, and besides – it was Bobbi Morse the discussion was about, on a metaphorical level: he knew her the best…well, one of the best, but the rest of the people who knew her (and him) were either dead or still in S.H.I.E.L.D., back in the civilized, settled, Marvel space. Until recently, it involved him and Bobbi too, but ‘recently’, while not meaning ‘a long time ago’, did not mean ‘currently’ either – it was still in the past, however recent, and the present was very different, in a fairly bad way.

…And it was all Lance’s fault, this time. He knew that ‘The Trio’ were not trustworthy; the previous deal with Fortune and his niece/cousin/whoever back in the fifteenth had fallen through, so why would the situation change now, in the sixteenth? Lance did not know just what he had been thinking, when he agreed to leave S.H.I.E.L.D., but leave it he did and what was worse – he took Bob with him, Bob, who had always been pro-S.H.I.E.L.D.- 

Okay, S.H.I.E.L.D. used to be Bobbi’s life for as long as Hunter had known her, so her leaving ‘the department’ for him had to be a very big deal – and he had blown it. Dominic and the rest of his crew, however small, had vanished once more into obscurity, and he and Bob, rather than being two of Marvel’s most wanted (most desirable, most popular, which was what Bobbi deserved), have found themselves completely flat-footed, with all their bridges burned behind them…

Well, yes, this was probably an exaggeration – Coulson and his people would probably accept them back, provided that Hunter and Morse begged in a sufficiently humble way, promising to re-dedicate themselves to the (elusive) greater good and agree to any conditions, then yes, they would be back in, especially now that Hive seemed to be taking over from where Grant Ward had left off. The two were very different, with Hive being the inferior villain, (in so many ways), but his wider array of powers made him harder to defeat; plus Coulson and the others were having their problems with Daisy, so any spare/extra bodies, capable bodies, would’ve been more than welcome.

However – Lance, for one, does not want to go back to S.H.I.E.L.D., especially now that Grant is dead. The man was a ruthless, murdering asshole, and he had earned his death row twenty times over, yet the problem is that Coulson himself is ‘just’ an asshole, and his (and May’s, and the others’) talk of ‘a greater good’ don’t hide the fact that Coulson and his agents, (but especially Coulson) say one thing, do another, but are apparently thinking/meaning about the third.

The last part is especially worrisome, at least for Hunter. He is used, (and so is Bobbi), to people who say one thing and do another – hypocrites or honestly lying, this sort of person comes and goes in the mercenary trade. However, if you add the ‘third thing’ to the equation, then you get some very dangerous delusions here, in a very bad way.  
Moreover ‘greater good’? Hunter is all about the ‘greater good’, he will vote for it in elections every time – yet so far this ‘greater good’ had resulted in Bobbi being tortured, while Lance himself got chewed out for Coulson for attempting to do the same thing that Coulson had done: i.e. killed Grant Ward (right?).

Honestly, Lance could handle the chewing out by Coulson for failure – other people, including Izzy, had done it to him too. However, the fact that Coulson did not acknowledge this chewing-out for what it is, is something else. Coulson and his people are falling apart at mental seams – but it is not about them, it is about Bob.

Bob, Bobbi Morse, The Mockingbird, is currently sitting next to him in an intergalactic transport shuttle, and she is not complaining. Bobbi IS the most high-maintenance person Lance has ever known, and their current means of transportation are the opposite of everything high maintenance that there is – and Bobbi is not complaining. Or whining. Or arguing. Or even trying to. Instead, she behaves as Melinda May or Daisy Johnson would act – i.e. taking it on the chin. 

Lance Hunter does not want his partner, (the one and only), to be taking it on the chin. It is his job. Bobbi should be behaving as she normally does, and right now-

“Lance,” Bobbi leaned forwards, across their tiny room, and warmly, and firmly, clasped his hands. “Don’t worry. Things will be better now – in a different way, I know it.”

“Bob,” Lance groaned. “We were supposed to be living the life of glamorous adventurers, uncovering conspiracies and being heroes – of some sort, at least. We would have been famous, well known, and popular. Instead – we got nothing but a quick fade into obscurity, unless we get Phil and the others to take us back.” He paused. “Okay, we’re on an intergalactic space transport, it smells like a cross be-tween Noah’s Ark and a zoo, so Phil and the others won’t take us back for physical, obvious reasons. Are you with me so far?”

“Lance,” Bobbi said softly, “don’t ever change.” She leaned forwards and kissed him, straight on the mouth. 

All sorts of fireworks shot through Lance’s body, and his worries and concerns vanished from him – literally – at least for the moment. He got up – onto his feet as well – and he and Bobbi would have gone at it right in the manger, when he realized something.

“Bob, the noise has changed. I think we’re landing.”

Reluctantly, the two separated from each other.

/ / /

The descent of Hunter and Morse onto the new planet was not glamorous – again. Most of the ‘passengers’ on their shuttle were not human, but animals, who were designated to this planet as part of its’ terraformation process. Humans were in a clear minority, and right now, the newcomers were the unpopular minority here and now.

“Okay, Hunter and Morse?” one of the customs officers said curtly to them, (while most of his col-leagues were herding the animals – donkeys and horses – into a separate corral, and the rest were approaching/handling the rest of human new arrivals in the same manner as Hunter and Morse were being handled). 

“Yeah, that’s us,” Bobbi spoke, trying to go either for ‘friendly’ or ‘blank’ – she wasn’t doing her best job with either of those emotions. “What’s up?”

“Go to your handlers over there,” the customs officer grunted. “Over there. Lucky you – they’re with CyberTek.”

“CyberTek?” Hunter and Morse exclaimed and after exchanging a look, trotted over in the indicated direction. Sure enough, Grant and Kara were standing over there, looking over at their new ‘charges’ with hard-to-read looks.

“Okay, we did not expect you two,” Kara finally broken the silence, in a subdued and cautious voice. “What happened? Where did it go wrong with Coulson and the others?”

“Kara,” Bobbi did her best to look her ex-friend right in the eye. “I’m sorry for selling you to Hydra because of our rivalry for Lance. And I’m sorry for choosing my pride over you in S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Your apology is accepted,” Kara said slowly, after a pause. “What has happened, however? Where did it go wrong with Coulson and the others?”

“I think it went wrong before us, even you,” Lance answered instead, primarily to Grant. “Coulson, he, never cared about you, or Kara, at least not until you offed his mistress. Why are you still alive? How come Kara is alive, too?”

“CyberTek. It was designed to be a medical company first and foremost – super-soldiers came later, and never really got past the Deathlok project,” Grant shrugged. “I was able to save Kara, and then Kara was able to save me. Cyborgnetics and all,” he trailed away.

“Sorry about that, mate,” Lance finally filled the silence. “I still don’t like you, you have Bobbi tortured, but nowadays we like Coulson a lot less. At least you are honest as to who you are – Coulson and his people are just as bad as you are, but deny it, hiding behind ‘the greater good’, however they per-ceive it. You, at least, can move forwards and become better people – maybe.”

“Is this why you left?” Kara asked, gently, as the four of them moved through dusty, even dirty, streets. “S.H.I.E.L.D., that is?”

“Yes,” Lance nodded. “After the – Iliad, Coulson was using Ward over here to keep Bobbi in check, and by that he kept me in check. After – Maveth, he quickly replaced Ward with Russians to keep both of us in check at the same time, if we would have let him. Instead, we burned all the bridges, bit off the proverbial trapped leg and left. We were supposed to go with Dominic Fortune, but you know how it went in the fifteenth? Now it went the same way – I do not know what is his problem and his niece’s, but it was not about him this time around. We are not villains, but neither are we crazy, and the entire ‘greater good’ thing got old by then, May or no May. So we left.”

Almost unconsciously, he and Bobbi hugged each other, even as Kara and Grant unlocked a door into a building and ushered them in. Inside was an office, complete with air-conditioning and refreshing lemony drinks of some sort (non-alcoholic, BTW). 

“Nice decor,” Bobbi spoke with genuine respect in her voice. “Very classy. Why are you being civil to us?”

“In part, because we’re curious. We – CyberTek – own 12.5 percent of the current venture: you know, the introduction of the donkeys and the like to the new planet,” Kara explained. “And – you apologized, Bobbi. This is all that I, and Grant, ever wanted from you.”

“And curiosity?”

“We learned that you two were coming here, to start anew-“

“It is no longer about the glamour of being a hero,” Bobbi said firmly. “It is about me and Hunter winning our honor back and trying to be decent humans: neither of us is sure anymore that Coulson’s is the right way to do it. We wanted out, and Coulson and Hive can destroy each other instead. Does it make us terrible people? We do care about it, just not enough to stay in S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Well, right now you’re working for CyberTek, so unless you want to go back, you can stay with us…or you can work in the field, with the vets, handling the animals,” Kara shrugged. “I must tell you, me and Grant have worked with the camels when they just got here, and plant-eaters or not, they got temper and teeth to match. This batch is more varied – not just donkeys and zebras, for example, but also rhinos…”

“Right, we’ll try to work here instead,” Bobbi said brightly, “but did I mention that Lance and I are a package deal?”

“No, but we agree,” Grant nodded simply. “Here are your new badges.”

"Thanks," Lance said in a similarly curt voice.

"This calls for a celebration," Kara drummed her fingers, as she swallowed the rest of her lemony drink. "Something with garlic and cheddar cheese, I think."

Bobbi thought about this and the lack of alcohol, and came to a conclusion:

"Grant, is Kara pregnant with your child?"

"Wouldn't you want to know?" Kara herself replied instead with a smirk.

"Yes, we would. Also, what will we be doing, exactly?"

"Now, let us start explaining to you-"

And this was how Lance Hunter and Bobbi Morse suddenly found themselves employed, on a new planet, with decent wages and free from S.H.I.E.L.D. influence at last – at least for a while.

The end?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lincoln isn't dead. Neither is Daisy.

The next time Grant saw Daisy Johnson, (after a long hiatus), it was both too early and not early enough. 

“Shouldn’t you be with Coulson and the rest of ‘Team S.H.I.E.L.D.’, planning strategies to defeat Hydra, Hive, and everyone in between?” he asked her, even as his underlings wheeled Lincoln into the operations’ room. “What has happened to him, anyhow?”

“Hive. Lincoln stopped him. Hive is gone. Hydra, probably, is gone as well,” Daisy said, pointedly NOT looking at Grant, which suited the latter just fine, really. “Well, Talbot says so, so we might as well believe him.”

“…” Silence fell. The heat on the planet (it still has no name, some just call it the New Athas, but the name doesn’t stick because of copyright issues) is currently oppressive and powerful; only AC units keep the humans going; they, and various fans, water- and wind-cooling systems, portable freezers, designed, primarily, for drinks, and the other, similar, inventions, of course. Hell, sometimes a simple shade is good enough, for some.

Right now, yes, the silence is uncomfortable largely because of the heat, but also because of their past history together, too.

“…I’m sorry for treating you like crap,” Daisy suddenly broke silence. “Yes, you took and ruined our dream, but we should’ve been better than you – but we weren’t. Instead, Coulson took you on the one-up game, in the wrong direction, and we all got caught in it.”

“You talked to Lance and Bobbi?” Grant could not help but to ask. “I saw them around here earlier-“

“More like drew my own conclusions, especially after the director had Secret Warriors disbanded after a first opportunity,” Daisy replied. “He, and May, and the others, blamed it all on Hive and Hive’s sway, but I, and Lincoln, and the other InHumans figured it all quickly enough. Yes, S.H.I.E.L.D., especially Coulson, and May, and Mack, and the rest of the older guard, they don’t trust the gifted, including the InHumans, as much as they claim to, but couldn’t they honestly told us, starting with me, about it? Instead, I, like a fool, tried to create an InHuman team for S.H.I.E.L.D. What a joke! Moreover - not a very fun one. And then Hive had me ‘swayed’ and I…finally understood what you went through when Garrett did to you what he had, no matter what you told me-“

“John had me conditioned. Like a dog,” Grant grimaced from his mental pain. “But Skye, or Daisy, or whatever your name is for the moment, you shouldn’t- this doesn’t mean that you should-“

“Grant. You idiot. Understanding _is_ forgiveness, don’t you know that?” Daisy snapped.

Grant stared blankly at her. “Daisy, S.H.I.E.L.D. or no S.H.I.E.L.D, I am a murderer – well, I was, I suppose. Maybe it is in the past, but-“

“Well, Lincoln would definitely agree with ‘the past’ bit,” Daisy said, grimacing herself. “He and I…well, I thought that I knew where we stood in regards to each other. I was probably wrong. He and his predeterminism…it was all a lie. Not unlike you, he was suicidal – he told me and the rest of the agents that each InHuman had a specific destiny assigned to them…he lied. The In-Humans are just as free-willed as the ordinary humans are, and he, Lincoln, he used his free will to trick us all, to die a hero, to kill Hive. He would've died too, if I haven't figured it out and got to him after the crash, and fooled everyone with a narrativum clone, as you have-”

“Yes, I – and Kara, and our assistants – got to put him together again now,” Grant shrugged. “He certainly came close to executing his dream. Good thing that you were around to keep him together. How did you know to come here?”

“I remained in touch with Lance and Bobbi after they moved here. Neither Coulson nor Hive knew about this…because they never asked. Lucky them. Lucky me and you and the others, for that matter.”

…It was then that Lincoln was wheeled in. The young InHuman was still in a bad shape, but he was no longer falling to pieces, let alone dying as he was before. “Hey!” he gave Daisy an unsteady smile and a hand wave. “I’m alive.”

“Yes you are,” Daisy smiled back in an equally unsteady manner. “And you’re going to recover, and grow healthy so that I could kill you again for pulling a stunt like that! Seriously, Grant already did something similar, and the two of us really didn’t work out. Do you want us to fail too? As a couple?”

“No!” Lincoln shook his head. “You… I… what are we going to do now, Daisy? Now that things with S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t work out?”

“Well, we always need a lizard exterminator,” Kara, who had wheeled Lincoln into the room after the operation, (admittedly very heavy and intense), suggested cheerfully. “This is a new planet, everything is very official here, and unsanctioned lizards can be…tricky.”

“Unsanctioned lizards?” Daisy blinked, (as well as Lincoln).

“Look outside,” Grant decided to be helpful. “In these parts, aside from humans – and InHumans, to be technical – the only animals so far are camels, donkeys, and elephants. The elephants have arrived only recently. Their paperwork is in order. The lizards have arrived even more recently. No one knows how exactly. No one has requested them. Want to find out? You get a commission and everything.”

Daisy and Lincoln exchanged a look. Neither one of them trusted Grant and Kara entirely, not yet, but… they did need a reason to stay (beyond Lincoln’s recovery, of course).  
“Deal,” Lincoln finally told the other couple. “Now you mentioned something about Lance and Bobbi?”

_End chapter 2_


	3. Chapter 3

The morning dawn bright and sunny. Lincoln, who had the most restful and pain-free sleep last night ever since he blew himself up in a spaceship with Hive, woke up feeling very good, actually. Not completely, true – the fallback from that little stunt would haunt him for a while yet, and not just in a physical manner – but still better than when he was literally falling apart, you know?

Daisy was not in their apartment, but there was a note, a somewhat curt one, that she was already up and out, learning more about the lizard problem; there would be people coming over to check out Lincoln’s and his new, improved state of physical conditions. Go Lincoln.

Surprisingly, Lincoln found himself not feeling as hurt as he could have expected after reading Daisy’s missive. He had earned it, somewhat, after his last stunts over at S.H.I.E.L.D. It is not that they were bad people – far from it; it is just that they were not his people, and after the en-tire bloody mess with Jiaying, Cal, and the rest of Li Shi, Lincoln genuinely did not want to pretend to be someone else anymore – he just wanted to be himself…and he wanted himself to be self-sufficient. 

So far so good, but what about Daisy? The young woman clearly saw them as a couple, and she was amazing, and Lincoln did want a family, and he had created a clone – out of narrativum – but something went wrong, and now he had no idea of what to do.

Well, aside from the obvious – to recuperate, Lincoln knew that he was out of ideas. Something went wrong with the clone, (for some reason he suspected that it/he might be working with the FBI now instead), and he was on his own with Daisy, and it was his entire…maybe not fault, but achievement, and he had no idea of where to go from there.  
Slight giggles ruined his contemplations, or rather – they broke it. Lincoln carefully turned around – and there were a couple of girls, neither older than 10 years of age, looking at him with some curiosity…okay, quite a bit of curiosity, actually.

“Hi!” said one of them, “I’m Suzy! This is my friend Stana! You have met my mommy, Kara, yesterday, right? She was one of people who fixed you! She said that you had nuclear poisoning! If you hadn’t had narrativum poisoning too, you would’ve died!”

“Um,” Lincoln blinked. “Is Stana your sister?”

“No,” Suzy’s face dimmed. So did Stana’s. “She’s just a friend, actually-“

“Girls, please don’t bother our patient,” Kara Palamas, the mother of Suzy (and the partner of Grant) walked into the apartment as well. “He had been literally put together, if he wasn’t an InHuman, he would’ve died.”

“Just for the record, in regards to narrativum, I’m not the clone,” Lincoln spoke, somewhat defensive. “I’m the original!”

“Of course you are,” Kara agreed, solemn and serious. “This is why clones, LMD and all, should be left to S.H.I.E.L.D. professionals and all. Grant used one to cover our tracks after I almost died. Coulson killed it/him, but Hive took over it then?” she half-asked and half-stated.

“Yes,” Lincoln replied. “Things became worse then. Lance and Bobbi left… we fell apart. I do not know if I can say ‘we’, since I wasn’t one of them, not until Mack and Coulson decided that Daisy and I… never mind. Daisy, she – confuses me, a lot, but Hive was right. I do not love her – not exactly-“

“Stop,” Kara said in an emotionless voice, (both girls were absent for the moment). “Love is a very tricky thing, sir – neither Grant nor I had been each other’s first choice-“

“I don’t want explanations, I want to talk it out,” Lincoln himself was flustered, but beneath the fluster, you could sense the determination. “On the other hand? I am sorry that I tried to use you as a sounding board-“

“Say no more,” Kara exhaled, “I understand. Now come, let’s start your daily checkup?”

As she let Lincoln to the other medics, she felt herself feeling oddly flustered and confused…

* * *

The corridors through which Daisy walked, accompanied by Grant, reminded her of a zoo – the same smell, the same sounds: it had been a while since Daisy heard or smelled any animals, wild or domestic or any others; S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t big on animals (though perhaps Fitz did get his monkey now that she and Lincoln were done with S.H.I.E.L.D.).

Even though Daisy was thinking, she was also looking around (she could multitask, thank you very much).

“It’s so different from the apartment buildings,” she spoke to no one in particular. “There it’s very pristine and posh. Here it is not. Must be great running CyberTek, yeah?”

“No.”

“Oh? Not great?”

“No, Daisy, I’m not arguing with you,” Grant grimaced, looking very unhappy, if not pained. “We’re done; we never were, so stop it. Yes, you still confuse me and all, but I do not want to argue with you anymore. I want to help you and Lincoln because it is you – and Lincoln – period. Can we just get along until Lincoln recovers, at least?”

“…If we won’t fight or argue, how can we communicate?” Daisy spoke in a much smaller voice, sounding really displeased about Grant’s speech. “Robot, I hate you, but you being respectable? It is not right! No matter what you did in the past, you never tried to come into the light; you were one of us, just…somehow…twisted…” she trailed away.

Now they both stood, looking at each other – askance, both truly upset with each other as well as with themselves. “What brought this on?” Grant finally spoke, flatly.

“I don’t know; maybe Lincoln’s stupid stunt – he knew that we were going to deal with Hive all the same, but he opted for the heroic sacrifice option instead,” Daisy looked away. “Between that and the clone…yes, I’m not happy with him, but there are different sorts of happiness. Plus I totally knew that Hive wasn’t you – it was never you.”

“Daisy. What did Hive do to you?” Grant asked quietly.

“I told you yesterday. It made me feel like you; I finally understood what you went through with Garrett after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell,” Daisy sounded miserable. “It’s not a good thing… I am truly sorry for how we treated you after Garrett died.”

“…Apology accepted,” Grant finally reached some conclusion. “I’m sorry too – for breaking your heart back on the Bus…”

“Apology accepted too,” Daisy replied, slowly. “So, now what? I am not returning to Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D., Lincoln or no Lincoln, and not just because his initiative towards the Inhu-mans has run its’ course. I was loyal to him; he cared about me, but he-“

“-coddled you, however professionally,” Grant nodded. “I know. This is why I didn’t, when we first met.”

Daisy nodded. Silence fell once more… only to be broken by the arrival of Bobbi and Lance on the scene. “Hi!” Bobbi spoke to Daisy with exaggerated brightness. “How’s Lincoln?”

“Beginning to recover,” Daisy replied. “Sorry for being so curt yesterday; I wasn’t myself…”

“We know,” Lance and Bobbi exchanged looks. “Are you ready to start your own ‘working vacation’?”

“I suppose I am,” Daisy admitted, as she looked back at Grant. “Where, and how, do we start?”

_TBC…_


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains more background information of the story. Warning - OCs ahead.

_On the next day…_

And on the next day, when the shadows were still long and the weather – aren’t as hot as it was get during the day – Grant and Daisy (or Skye) went forth to resolve the issue of lizards…just because.

“So, let me get this straight,” Daisy commented to Bobbi and Lance to break the tension during the supper last night. “The elephants are for the Republican Party, the donkeys – for the Democratic, and the camels are for the monarchists?”

“Exactly,” the taller woman replied, (gratefully), back then. “This is one way of looking at it. So far we are badgering Grant and Kara to add some horses into the mix, but between the allocated budget for the elephants and the lizard situations, the horses are no-go – yet.”

“You like horses, don’t you?” Daisy asked politely, trying to ignore the situation, where Lincoln got involved with Kara’s argument with Suzy over some bananas, it seemed. 

“Yes,” Bobbi shot the shorter woman a look. “So sue me – I had a happy, well-to-do, childhood, and I would like Mason to have something similar too, a new life on a new planet or not. And do you like horses or donkeys better, Daisy?”

“I’m not going there, Bobbi,” Daisy shook her head. “You and Lance are really starting a new life here, period?”

“It’s less straightforward than that,” it was Bobbi’s turn to deny as an answer. “I really wanted to make it work in the ‘new’ S.H.I.E.L.D. – and it took me to some questionable decisions, but, then thing is, the ‘new’ S.H.I.E.L.D., the one that Coulson started, it wasn’t a new chance, it wasn’t anything new, actually. It was just a place of employment, with some family values or qualities, but only for those that went onto Coulson’s ‘good’ list, so to speak. For those who didn’t make it, it wasn’t.”

“If this is about the Russians-“

“Sort of,” Lance replied this time. “Bob and I – we had an epiphany, that that wasn’t what we wanted – neither ‘what’ nor ‘how’, and so we left. It cost us a lot; it probably cost you even more; but the thing is that we could not keep working at S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore, no matter what. We could have stayed, but it would have been worse. So we left.”

“You could’ve warned us,” Lincoln joined the discussion. “Well, by ‘warned’ I mean ‘contacted us earlier’ or something along those lines.”

“Yes, well, we couldn’t,” Lance grunted. “Dominic Fortune had screwed us over – again-“

“Okay,” Lincoln spoke quickly, and that was the end of that – the rest of the meal was occupied mostly by observing the ‘unsanctioned’ geckoes hunt the local insects (no, they were not specifically exported either, they came here unannounced just as the lizards had, but they were insects, they did not count). Observing them caused Daisy (for one) to realize that the reptiles had some sort of method behind their actions, and so, this morning, she and Grant were busy following some of them across the planet, (while keeping in touch with Bobbi and Lance, who were busy overseeing the animals this morning). 

“So, where are we currently heading to, per se?” she asked her companion.

“Oh, that is the site of one of the last Olympic villages, you know,” came the conversational reply. “They had been held on this planet, shortly before the entire Games’ system had imploded due to drug scandals, behind-the-scenes politics, other drama, you name it. Cruddy architecture and boorish behavior of both the athletes and the staff had only made it worse. The entire sports’ system has collapsed, as you know it-“

“Very sad,” Daisy agreed. “So, what over there, far out to your left?”

“…As you know, this is a new planet. There is CyberTek’s property. There is the abandoned ex-Olympics village. To our north lies private property, as well as the offices of the local lawyers – specialize mainly in the immigrant laws – also a tour company and a medical office, mostly first aid than a hospital. In addition, over there? Some crazy-rich rich person is settling his architectural masterpieces for a later day. There is a semi-transforming robot, a stone castle of a mansion, and more recently – a wooden mansion, a giant stone sphinx, and a humanoid statue that just might be made out of solid gold, you know?”

Daisy blinked. “Some people have some crazy ideas, don’t they?”

“Yes,” Grant nodded. “Anyways, here we are. You think that the lizards are coming from here? Let’s check it out.”

“And here is the abandoned village?”

“Yes. See the parade of the planets over there?”

“Why, yes!” Daisy perked up. “There is Mercury and Mars, Jupiter and Pluto, Uranus and Neptune and Venus, even Earth and Saturn! Neat!”

“This is the Olympian pantheon – it was supposed to be most appropriate for an Olympic games’ village,” spoke a newcomer – a woman of about Jiaying’s age (before Cal had killed her), dressed in green, and surrounded by several lizards. “Hello. I am Hue Tyuet, and you are?”

Daisy frowned and gave the woman a good sharp look. “You’re not related to Jiaying Zabo, are you?” she said, thinking about pieces and puzzles for her own personal reasons.

“Yes, that was my sister,” the older woman replied as she gave her a sharp look. “You’re her daughter, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Daisy said warily. “What of it?”

“This makes us family – I’m your aunt.”

Daisy stared.

_TBC_


End file.
